


Vacationing with Vipers

by Starrie_Wolf



Series: Fic Exchanges [Starrie Wolf] [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Companionable Snark, Established Relationship, Gen, Into the Woods - Freeform, Sassy Steve Rogers, Vacations Gone Awry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4790045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Director Fury sighed, looking down at all the HYDRA agents bound, gagged, and neatly deposited like a pile of Christmas presents in the back of the rescue helicopter.</p><p>“I thought I told you to take a vacation.”</p><p>Steve shrugged. “I guess they really wanted my autograph, Sir.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vacationing with Vipers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> Set post Captain America - The Winter Soldier, but in a world where Nick Fury never stepped down as the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Take a goddamned vacation,” had been Fury’s exact words.

Steve blinked.

Fury sighed, a long drawn-out sound of exasperation. “There now exists laws in this country,’ he enunciated, as though it pained him to acknowledge the existence of someone even _he_ had to report to, “that impose a maximum number of hours a government employee may put in per month. And you, Captain, are in violation of that law. So either you get your ass out of the door and don’t come back for the next two weeks, or I’m going to have to bust my ass at yet another disciplinary hearing. And _my ass_ is far too busy for that shit, you hear me?”

* * *

“Hiking.” Bucky rolled the word around his mouth, as though examining the taste of it. “You want to go hiking.”

“Well,” Steve said in what he considered to be a reasonable tone, “a road trip’s out, since neither of us can drive.” Apparently nowadays there were blanket laws against ninety-year-olds getting a driver’s license too, which, okay, was actually a fair point – except when they applied to him.

“I can drive a tank,” mused Bucky.

Steve heaved a sigh. “Bucky,” he said patiently, “your idea of ‘driving’ involves gunning the gas pedal and screaming ‘out of my way, losers!’ through the open tank door.”

“Yes, because going somewhere with none of these modern inventions like _unlimited hot water_ for showering sounds like a brilliant idea; geez, Steve, I don’t know why I’ve never thought about it before.” Despite all of his griping, Bucky was obediently packing a rucksack, folding his clothes to neat military standards with the absent ease of a long-ingrained habit even seventy years as the Winter Soldier hadn’t broken him of.

He tossed the last item into his rucksack, zipped it up, and grinned up at Steve – the oh- _so_ -familiar roguish grin that used to be permanent on his face, back before they were Captain America and Winter Soldier, back when they were just Steve-and-Bucky – and it make Steve’s heart _ache_. “Well, what are we waiting for, then?”

* * *

They settled into some sort of a routine. Each evening, Steve would chop the firewood, Bucky would pitch the tent – some military-grade four-man monstrosity, because the two-man one couldn’t fit them both – and lay out the sleeping bags while Steve got the fire going.

Steve hadn’t expected it to feel so familiar, but it was like traipsing all over Europe with the Howling Commandos all over again. Even now, he half expected Morita to flop down across from him at any moment, idly tossing twigs into the fire while cracking another one of his awful jokes. Or to see Dum-Dum doing maintenance on his gun, tongue poking out from the side of his mouth as he struggled with a particularly stubborn screw.

Then he’d blink, and Bucky would be poking his head out of the tent, loudly complaining to Steve that he was starving, could Steve please hurry up with dinner or he was going to _wither away_.

And then they’d both crawl into the sleeping bags, all three of them, zipped up together – yet another modern invention Steve never knew he needed but was grateful for nonetheless – to form a gigantic sleeping bag that could fit even the two of them.

* * *

Steve’s eyes flew open. He could have sworn –

Beside him, Bucky muttered something unintelligible and rolled over, drooling a little into the pillow. His metal arm was splayed out to the side, but his flesh one was draped over Steve, keeping him trapped in the cocoon of warmth. Steve let out a long breath. It was probably just some nocturnal creature prowling about the woods at night, hardly something to get worked up about.

He was almost asleep when he heard it again: the sound of a twig snapping, far too close to their tent, followed by unmistakeably _human_ hushing sounds.

Steve sat bolt upright, and felt more than saw Bucky startle into awareness; a slight hitch in the evenness of his breathing, the slightest tensing of the arm around his torso. Steve tapped two fingers against Bucky’s wrist, and drew a small circle. _Situation unknown._ His other arm snaked over to the vibranium shield lying against the wall of the tent, because if there were really armed hostiles out there, they were sitting ducks in this tent.

Bucky had evidently come to the same conclusion, for Steve only had a moment of forewarning – _I’m going in_ – before his ears were filled with the rending of heavy cloth, and the swoosh of tent poles snapping apart.

There was a startled shout.

Blinded by huge swathes of ripped fabric, Steve snatched his shield up and used it to bash his way through the tattered remains of their tent, adrenaline pumping through his veins. Unless they chose to open fire on him at close quarters, he should be able to survive any initial barrage. Somewhere near him, Bucky was cursing, a steady stream of profanities in at least three languages Steve could identify and a few more he couldn’t. There was the dull thunk of his metal arm crashing into something solid, and then Steve finally managed to free himself.

He blinked.

There were eight men sprawled in an ungainly pile on the ground, some struggling to disentangle themselves from the remnants of their tent, another clutching his skull as though he had just been brained by the tent pole snapping backwards, and the last three apparently out cold.

Just in case, Bucky nudged them with a toe to make sure they weren’t faking it. “HYDRA’s getting ridiculous if this is the best they can do.”

Steve helpfully introduced one of the few still conscious to the blunt end of his shield. “Still going for quantity over quality, I see.”

They looked at each other, a pile of unconscious or faintly moaning bodies between them.

“Well,” Bucky said, and yawned. “Looks like we’re going to have to cut our vacation short.”

* * *

“You ran into an eight-headed snake in the woods?” Natasha’s tone was teasing, but Steve could hear the underlying concern in her voice.

“Well, I definitely count eight heads,” he agreed in a blasé tone, while in the background Bucky was cheerfully tying all the HYDRA goons up with makeshift rope torn from what used to be a tent. “But also eight bodies, and eight pairs of arms –”

Natasha sighed. “He’s not going to like this,” she warned, and there was no need to elaborate on who ‘he’ was. “Extraction in two hours, tell your trigger-happy pal not to shoot the helicopter down.”

* * *

Director Fury was, indeed, waiting for them when they touched down on the Helicarrier, despite the fact that it was about four in the morning. He took one look at all the HYDRA agents bound, gagged, and neatly deposited like a pile of Christmas presents in the back of the rescue helicopter, and heaved another sigh.

“I thought I told you to take a vacation.”

Steve shrugged. “I guess they really wanted my autograph, Sir.”

Fury shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, and made a flapping motion at Steve with the other hand. “Get out of here, you’ve still got another week of vacation left. Try not to accidentally dismantle a HYDRA base this time.”

Bucky looked far too contemplative at that. Steve resolved to make sure they stayed in Brooklyn for the rest of the week. They had quite a bit of furniture to break in properly, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a Tumblr if you're interested!](starriewolf.tumblr.com)


End file.
